Xobni - An interesting Outlook Add-in

I found a link to a new piece of software, an add-in to Outlook that categorizes your email by person.  The software maintains that email is a social network.  It automatically pulls out and categorizes attachments, threads of messages, etc.

I'm not (yet) using the software.  I'm on the list for the beta, and I look forward to taking a look at the software.  If I'm allowed to talk about it once I actually get on the beta, I will post my thoughts here.

Technorati Tags: Xobni,Outlook,Email Management

Competitiveness in children

We picked up a Wii for the family this Christmas.  We didn't pick up any of the games, we just stuck with the Wii Sports set of games that came with the console itself.

My kids are quite competitive.  I knew they were competitive, but didn't actually think that they were as hardcore as they really are.

In a way, it's funny.  In a way, it's not.

When I was a kid, you didn't win every time.  You didn't lose everytime either.

Not everyone made the team when you tried out (I didn't make the Little Leauge Majors team, yet my brother played baseball all through high school)

But nowadays, some people get upset if everyone isn't included all the time. 

I like the old way.  Life isn't easy.  You won't always win.  Kids should learn to lose.  But they should be good losers.....My younger kids are NOT good losers.  YET.

Technorati Tags: Wii,Competitiveness

A banner day for football (College and Pro)

First, Rick Neuheisel was hired as the coach of the UCLA Bruins.

Next, the New England Patriots capped off their perfect regular season with a victory over the New York Giants.  The Giants fought hard, played extremely well, and except for bad clock management in the final quarter, looked to have a great chance to beat the Patriots.  Alas it was not to be.

Neuheisel as UCLA coach is troubling, in my opinion.  He has a checked past, both at Colorado where he had numerous NCAA violations that hampered the program, and for his gambling issues at the University of Washington which ended in him being terminated with cause.  I hope for UCLA's sake they made a good hire.  I sure hope that Neuheisel will consider the interim head coach DeWayne Walker as a potential assistant in his new staff, as the coach has a great reputation as a good recruiter and many of the players now at UCLA were recruited by him.

 

Technorati Tags: UCLA,Neuheisel,Patriots

Sending fax solution without fax machine

I found a new service today which will allow me to send faxes directly from my desktop.  It uses Skype and is an add-on.

Called PamFax2 it is a service that you pay by the fax.  I sent a three page fax (including the cover sheet) and it sent correctly to my regular fax machine at my office and worked quite nicely.

I encourage you to check it out if you are a road warrior, or a home office worker who doesn't have a fax machine but needs to send an occasional fax.  It seems to work quite well.  You can have it send via a Word document, a PDF, or even have it scan using your scanner and then send that scanned document.  Very nice.

Technorati Tags: Fax,PamFax,Pamela,Skype

Drivers for simple USB devices - WHY?

I got  a Digital Photo Keychain for Christmas.  It's USB attached, attaches to the computer and then you can copy photos on to it that can be viewed.

Pretty nice.  I'm notorious for never having pictures of my kids with me to show to people.  I have a ton of them on my websites, but with me?  In my wallet?  How 80s! <smile>

So my wife bought me a nice USB Photo keychain.  I thought, great, I'm running XP, I shouldn't need to install drivers for it.  Wrongo.

I attach it to my computer, and it shows up as a drive, but I can't use that drive except with proprietary software that comes with the device.  Care to guess how long it will be before that CD gets lost in the shuffle of CDs?  Not long.

Why can't USB device manufacturers come together and build devices that don't need additional drivers to be operated?  I'd love to be able to just drag and drop my photos onto this device.  I'd love to be able to attach it to the computer and use it as a USB drive, should that need ever arise.  But alas, it isn't going to happen.  Oh well.

Technorati Tags: Photo Keychain,USB,Christmas

SmugMug

With our photo business experiment, we've always hosted our site via a hosting provider, and the site just continues to grow exponentially as we add more photos to the site.

Fulfillment, what little of there that is done, is done manually. 

Payments are done manually.

Shipping is done manually.

I watched a great video podcast tonight with Robert Scoble and Don MacAskill from Smugmug.

I've followed Smugmug from afar for some time, through Don MacAskill's blog but because I already have a solution in place, I never really thought about using them.

Smugmug is an interesting story.  Started originally as an 'accident', they've grown steadily in the time they've been in business, five years from the time of the taping of the Scoble show, and never ever taken venture capital.

Good for them.  They're profitable, they do fantastic work from what I've seen, and they provide all the features for fulfillment, shipping, payments, etc, for the price of admission

You can even brand the site to look the way you want.  You can use your own pricing structure and they (obviously and most definitely they should) take a cut from the difference between your prices and the prices they charge their members.  But because they are handling most of the 'back end' chores, it looks like it is a great deal for $150 a year for a pro account.

After watching the video, I'm seriously considering moving our site to Smugmug and hosting email somewhere else, thereby eliminating one hosting account I have.

We'll see what the New Year brings.  But if you are interested in a great photo sharing site, check out SmugMug.  Also, check out Scoble's video of Don MacAskill at SmugMug.  You can find it at www.podtech.net .

 

Technorati Tags: SmugMug,Scoble,MacAskill

Costco Photo Center and Firefox (resolved)

Yes, it still works.  Somehow, someway, my profile on Costco.com got corrupted.

So, I created a new profile using a different email address.

Voila!  It works!

 

Technorati Tags: Costco,Firefox